Food freight services 'inadequate'

Mr Marshall says the SA Government also needs to do more to improve food security for people living in the APY Lands.

He says people are going hungry and little has been done to improve food freight services, since a report was commissioned by the SA Government in 2008.

SA Aboriginal Affairs Minister Grace Portolesi says the Government is working to ease food shortages, but Mr Marshall says the efforts are not enough.

"It's not about planting herb gardens out in the APY Lands and a Portolesi version of Indigenous MasterChef, it's about dealing with the guts issue of getting fresh produce up there in a reliable and cost-effective way," he said.

An Aboriginal non-profit organisation says a freight subsidy is needed for far north Aboriginal lands.

Kirsten Grace from the Mai Wiru Regional Stores Council says people including children often go without food.

"By the end of the pay week just before people receive their next allotment of income there are quite a lot of people who have run out of money by that time, so in the Mai Wiru Regional Stores Council they quote about three days in every week people were going without food," she said.

Ms Portolesi has long argued a freight subsidy would be unsustainable and says other projects are trying to reduce prices.